Guarded

I ran into a gentleman today who used to have a beard.  It is now gone.  We looked at him, and asked about his beard.  He responded by telling us that he had picked up his trimmer to shape up his beard, and without noticing what he was about to do, shaved a big, bald stripe through his facial hair.  The trimmer was missing its guard.

What is it that we approach in life equipped with our guards?  What radical thing would happen it we took the guard off?